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responses
exact duplicates of other answers
barely more than a link to an external site
not even a partial answer to the actual question
If you wish to improve an existing answer, click the edit link … For more guidance, see How to Answer.
Answers can be deleted at any time by their authors, unless the answer has been accepted by the question asker.
Answers can also be deleted by the community. …
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Still no answer to the question, and you have the same problem? … Help us find a solution by researching the problem, then contribute the results of your research and anything additional you’ve tried as a partial answer. …
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answer your own question on a Stack Exchange site. … Type in your answer, then submit both question and answer together.
Alternatively, you may go back and add an answer to your own question at any time. …
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When a user receives a good answer to their question, that user has the option to "accept" an answer. … If you accept:
someone else's answer: You gain +2 reputation and the author of the accepted answer earns +15 reputation.
your own answer: No reputation is awarded, and the answer does not float to the …
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Simply click the bounty award icon next to each answer to permanently award your bounty to the answerer. (You cannot award a bounty to your own answer.) … amount (or the full amount, if the answer is also accepted). …
Comments are temporary "Post-It" notes left on a question or answer. They can be upvoted (but not downvoted) and flagged, but do not generate reputation. … ; instead, post an actual answer (or edit to expand an existing one);
Compliments which do not add new information ("+1, great answer!") …
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by a moderator
Voting to delete questions with a score of -3 or lower immediately after they are closed
Editing tag wikis without needing approval
Deleting answers
When should I vote to delete an answer … You may vote to delete answers in the following cases:
The answer is extremely low quality: There is little to no scope for improvement
The answer doesn't attempt to answer the question; it may be a …
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Users can delete their own questions if the question:
has zero answers
has only one answer, but that answer has no upvotes
has no bounties that were awarded to any answer that isn't already deleted … If your answer was deleted, please see "Why and how are some answers deleted?" …
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To accept an answer:
Choose one answer that you believe is the best solution to your problem. … You may change which answer is accepted, or simply un-accept the answer, at any time.
Accepting an answer is not mandatory; do not feel compelled to accept the first answer you receive. …
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While every question deserves a chance to be answered, at some point the annoyance to those searching for a solution outweighs the increasingly-small chance that an answer will be provided. … not closed as a duplicate
has a score of 0 or less
is not locked
has no answers with a score > 0
has no accepted answer
has no pending reopen votes
has not been edited in the past 9 days
... it will …
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Upvotes on an answer give the answerer +10 reputation. … You can vote on posts 30 times per UTC day, plus 10 more times on questions only.
1Except for the accepted answer, which appears first unless it was written by the asker. …
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Begin by fixing your existing answers; do not just post the same answer again or delete all of your existing answers. … Do not post an answer simply to say "thanks" or "I'm having this problem, too"
Do not post follow-up questions as answers. Ask a new question instead. …
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Answer for the ages. … Posting a well-written answer under a poorly-written question just makes your answer look worse. …
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When you find a useful resource that can help answer a question (from another site or in an answer on Meta Stack Exchange) make sure you do all of the following:
Provide a link to the original page or answer … How do I write a good answer? …
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answers that do not attempt to answer the question asked or contain
only links and no explanation.
comments entered as answers (“I have the
same question” or “thanks for the great answer”). … Basic workflow
First, check to see if the post is a question or an answer; it will be labeled as "Question" or "Answer" at the top. The
majority of posts in this queue will be answers. …
Be specific
If you ask a vague question, you’ll get a vague answer. But if you give us details and context, we can provide a useful answer. … Keep an open mind
The answer to your question may not always be the one you wanted, but that doesn’t mean it is wrong. A conclusive answer isn’t always possible. …
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Updates an answer if more information is available or something has
changed.
Adds links to sources or citations. … Attempt to reply
introduces a request for clarification or question to the post’s author that should have been a comment or answer. …
If you’re unsure whether the
answer actually attempts to answer the question, use the “Skip”
option.
Basic workflow
When reviewing, you may do one or more of several actions or you may do none. … For example, an answer may be complete and do a good job of
answering the question, but need formatting help. …
We realize that when you come to ask questions, you're in a bit of a hurry, because you're looking for an answer to help you get your work done. … This is also a great time to dig into our advanced search features to find questions to answer, which also lets you practice how to search before asking additional questions. …
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Registration is not required to participate on Stack Exchange; you can read, answer, and suggest edits as an anonymous user, much like on Wikipedia. …
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As you see new answers to your question, vote up the helpful ones by clicking the upward pointing arrow to the left of the answer. … When you have decided which answer is the most helpful to you, mark it as the accepted answer by clicking on the check box outline to the left of the answer. …
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. - the fundamental goal of closing duplicate questions is to help people find the right answer by getting all of those answers in one place. … Please edit the question to limit it to a specific problem with enough detail to identify an adequate answer. Avoid asking multiple distinct questions at once. …
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You gain reputation when:
question is voted up: +10
answer is voted up: +10
answer is marked “accepted”: +15 (+2 to acceptor)
suggested edit is accepted: +2 (up to +1000 total per user)
bounty awarded … You lose reputation when:
your question is voted down: −2
your answer is voted down: −2
you vote down an answer: −1
you place a bounty on a question: − full bounty amount
one of your posts receives 6 …
Document your own continued efforts to answer the question. This will naturally bump the question and get more people interested in it. … You can accept an answer without awarding a bounty to it.
You can award a bounty on an answer without accepting it.
You must wait 24 hours before awarding a bounty. …
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The currently implemented flag types are the following:
Spam (i.e. undiscriminated bulk advertisement)
Rude or abusive
Not an answer (answers only)
Needs improvement (questions only)
Duplicate
A community-specific … Close flags, Not an Answer, and Very Low Quality are primarily handled this way. …
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The fundamental goal of closing duplicate questions is to help people find the right answer by getting all of those answers in one place. … There are many ways to ask the same question, and a user might not be able to find the answer if they're asking it a different way. …
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If you see a similar message when trying to post an answer, please see our guidance on what to do about answer bans. …
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Flagging a question or answer:
To flag a question or answer, click the “flag” link at the bottom of the post.
In the dialogue box, select the reason for the flag. …
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The license applicable for each Question and Answer revision is available on the post timeline. See this post for more information. …
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Access earned at 2,000 reputation
The First Posts queue contains the first few posts created by new users, who may
not fully understand the best way to ask and answer questions, … Flag posts that are spam or rude, as well as answers that don't attempt to answer the question or are link-only. …
You can choose to make any answer you own a community wiki by ticking the checkbox under the edit area to the right. … Moderators can also choose to convert posts into community wiki mode if they feel it is appropriate for the question or answer, generally after a discussion with the community and affected individuals. …
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The original author of a question or answer may always edit their own post, regardless of reputation level.
Edits are expected to be substantial and to leave the post better than you found it. … A rollback reverts a question or answer to a previous version in the edit history. The rollback action itself then appears as the most recent item in the edit history. …
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New users cannot:
post more than eight hyperlinks at a time, either in a post or their user profile
contribute answers to protected questions
ask or answer questions too rapidly
Why are restrictions … Once you’ve earned 10 reputation points from participating on this site, you’ll be able to answer a protected question.
How do I add links to my posts? …
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During beta, the community works together to answer seven essential questions for every Stack Exchange site:
Are questions about {subject} on or off topic?
What should our FAQ contain? …
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To prevent your question from being flagged and possibly removed, avoid asking subjective questions where …
every answer is equally valid: “What’s your favorite ______?” … your answer is provided along with the question, and you expect more answers: “I use ______ for ______, what do you use?” …
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Document your own continued efforts to answer your question. This will naturally bump your question to the homepage and get more people interested in it. …
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., you flagged an incorrect answer that you could've signaled by downvoting or corrected by editing). … How do I properly use the “Not an Answer” flag?
Allow recovery from flag hellban …
Users with this privilege and a total answer score (total upvotes minus total downvotes) of 5 or more on the tag, can suggest tag synonyms. … Users with a total answer score of 5 or more on the tag, can vote for tag synonyms. …
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It’s also OK to ask and answer your own question.
Have a question about Stack Overflow Jobs or Talent?
Questions about Stack Overflow Jobs should be asked on Meta Stack Overflow. …
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This could happen for a variety of reasons, such as a user finding a user's great answer and visiting all of their posts to upvote them, or a user getting into an argument with another user and downvoting …
Some answers may not attempt to answer the question at all, and should be flagged. … You have a limited number of votes per day, and answer downvotes cost you a tiny bit of reputation on top of that; use them wisely.
How do I vote down? …
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Any question at least a day old can be protected and unprotected by users that have the privilege, provided the question has received at least one answer from a user with less than 10 reputation. …
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Answer the existing questions, or if they already have good answers, vote those up. While you're here, look around for other questions you can help with (not just ones about your product). …
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[discussion], for posts that may not have a clear-cut right or wrong answer and are often subjective. If it's not a bug or feature request, it is probably a discussion. …
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Voting up a question or answer signals to the rest of the community that a post is interesting, well-researched, and useful, while voting down a post signals the opposite: that the post contains wrong …
We also recommend finding questions that you can answer and providing great answers to them. …
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is an opinion-based question that doesn’t have an objectively correct answer.
On topic article is a site-specific guide to
what types of questions are on and off topic on this site. …
Tags are a means of connecting experts with questions they will be able to answer by sorting questions into specific, well-defined categories. …
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is an opinion-based question that doesn’t have an objectively correct answer.
On topic article is a site-specific guide to what types of questions are on and off topic on this site. …
allowed, except in the case of Historical Significance locks - see below)
The one exception to this is the "Comments only lock", which only prevents new comments from being added to the question or answer …
Closing is a democratic voting process where the community identifies questions that duplicate existing content, are unreasonable to answer in their current state, or do not belong on the site. …
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1 returns only questions that have accepted answers; no/false/0 returns only questions with no accepted answers.
isanswered: yes/true/1 returns only questions that have at least one positively-scored answer …
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